Components to be mounted on a circuit board are conventionally placed onto pads on the circuit board to form a circuit board assembly. The assembly is then reflowed through an oven for soldering the components to the circuit board. This therefore minimizes assembly time as soldering of components to one side of the circuit board is done in a single operation.
Conventional reflow ovens are not adapted to re-align components that are inadvertently misaligned from pads on the circuit board. Accordingly, this can result in soldering defects and consequently, lower circuit board assembly yield.
To eliminate these defects, U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,841 describes a reflow oven with a mechanism for vibrating a circuit board assembly during reflow to re-align displaced components. However, in vibrating the circuit board assembly, all components on the circuit board are subjected to the vibrating. As a result, the vibrating may cause components to drop off from an undersurface of a two-sided circuit board assembly. Furthermore, the mechanism described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,841 is only effective in areas within a reflow oven where temperatures are sufficient for solder to be in a molten state. This can unfortunately lead to poor solder joints if vibration occurs when the solder is setting.